Columbia County commissioners are expected to approve a measure on Tuesday which will make permanent changes to how and when new properties are added to the county’s growing Stormwater Utility Service Area.

Commissioners have already given initial approval to the changes, which were presented at the Feb. 3 regular meeting.

Included in Tuesday’s measure will be an expansion of the existing service area, which will bring in about 500 new parcels in two sections of the county near Grovetown.

Regent Jim Hull, of Augusta, will lead the search committee to find the next president of Georgia Regents University, the University System of Georgia announced Tuesday.

Among the many community members who will be part of the search committee is University Hospital CEO Jim Davis, whose health care system is discussing potential partnerships with Georgia Regents Health System, according to the news release.

County residents who intend to vote in the March 17 county-wide Special Election, have until Tuesday to register to vote.

Columbia County Elections Director Nancy Gay said eligible residents will have until close of business on Tuesday to register at the Board of Elections office, 500 Faircloth Drive, Building E, in Evans.

The only measure on the March 17 ballot will be a resolution for the continuation of the county education special local option sales tax, otherwise known as the ESPLOST.

A special education school bus monitor was injured and a 6-year-old pupil shaken up when bus No. 104 rolled onto its side Thursday afternoon as its driver tried to avoid hitting a deer on William Few Parkway.

According to Columbia County Sheriff’s Capt. Sharif Chochol, the Lewiston Elementary student, who was not identified, did not appear injured. Emergency management technicians examined the boy at the scene while his parents comforted him.

River Ridge Elementary School fourth-graders Marina Kondrikova and Robert Payne are experienced recyclers.

They recycle many materials at home and participate in the school’s Recycling Team.

A public-private partnership is helping to train more young recyclers in the county’s schools.

River Ridge’s newest recycling effort is a pilot program through Columbia County’s Keep Columbia County Beautiful committee and Precision Waste. Precision Waste delivered a 21-foot, cheerfully-decorated container for the students to put recyclable materials into.

ATLANTA — The state’s economy would suffer from the immediate end to tax credits for electric vehicles, according to a study released Feb.11, and one legislator is working toward a gradual phaseout instead of an immediate cutoff like House leaders propose.

Rep. Ben Harbin, R-Evans, is the author of a bipartisan bill to pare it down and begin a five-year weaning process he said is necessary to allow the market to adjust.

“We want this to be an incentive. We don’t want it to be just a subsidy,” he said.

Authorities discovered a threat to blow up a Grovetown area home was a hoax Friday.

At 12:24 p.m., a man called the Grovetown Department of Public Safety dispatchers threatening to blow up a home at 505 Sweet Meadow Drive within a certain amount of time if he wasn’t paid $10,000, according to Columbia County sheriff’s Capt. Rick Whitaker.

The man called five times “counting down the minutes” to the deadline.